Does anyone know if the W stamped WOTC cards were aftermark stamps, or whether they were stamped in the original printing process?
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If I understand the question properly, I think technically all stamps are “aftermark” stamps in that the card goes into a separate foil stamping machine after they are printed. Whether or not this stamping happened in the same factory, I’m unsure.
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Thanks! Yeah, I was thinking about the Italian gold stamp LPP Pikachus. They were stamped years later.
It got me thinking about the W stamped. They were released around the same time as printing would have been anyway. Just wondering if anyone knew whether it was a conscious decision or an after the printing decision.
Perhaps they knew about the promo straight away and had full intentions to stamp fresh from printing. Or whether it was a few months later and someone got old printed stock and took it to W stamp and distribute.
Is there any good documentation on the history of this release, by the way? I feel like I’ve never seen a good summary or anything.
All my knowledge has come from @quuador and his posts. The comments on them in this forum and other social media.
Seems;
- LPP are/were a shop/league for Pokémon, yugioh etc. (according to some Italians)
-they didn’t have permission, no repercussions because they weren’t sold
-stamped in 2011 on bulk bought pikachus
-English regular + upside down stamp
-two Italian versions
Just had me wondering about the W stamp because they were sanctioned and official WOTC cards. Whether they planned it or just had bulk base set 2 wartortles etc. and somebody was like “hey let’s stamp them for this new promo”
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Yeah, that’s really all I know too. Such an odd story.
Yeah, rather strange. This is their website, which looks like it hasn’t been updated for 20 years. Really just seems like they are an independent seller who cornered the market in Italy and were the biggest and best for Pokémon. I think Continental Europe was rather neglected when it came to Pokémon league in the early days, and it was up to real enthusiasts to pick up the slack if they wanted a scene. LPP were the ones to do that in Italy I’m guessing, and they thought it would be nice to do a stamped giveaway for Pokémon day.
If we could find a good foil press, we should do an “elitefourum” stamp run next year for Pokémon day haha. We can all vote which cheap bulk card we choose.
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Perhaps I’m misunderstanding your question, but do you mean any/all the “w” stamp promos?
The W stamp dark arbok are the only printing I know of with the corrected “200001” error. Or is there another? This would suggest they were printed solely for this purpose, no?
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Great observation.
There are six versions actually, not 4. To quote myself from my collection thread post:
English WotC #1 LPPCollecting promos:
Next we have the English #1 WotC promo Pikachu with LPPCollecting stamps. LPPCollecting is the largest distributor of Pokémon TCG cards in Italy, who also organizes the Pokémon TCG tournaments and Pokémon Days in Italy. There are six different stamped versions in total:
- “LPPCollecting - Welcome to the first run”
- “LPPCollecting - Per 2 o piu’ giocatori” (the English translation is “For 2 or more players”)
- “LPPCollecting - Per 2 o piu’ giogatori”
- Upside down “LPPCollecting - Per 2 o piu’ giogatori”
- Upside down “LPPCollecting - Per 2 o piu’ giocatori”
- “LPPCollecting.it - 20th Anniversario”
According to LPPCollecting themselves, it started with the regular “giogatori” print for the Italian Pokémon Day on June 18th and 19th, 2011. When they noticed the word was misspelled, they corrected it to the regular “giocatori” print. Around this same time, the English stamped version was created as well.
Later in 2017 or 2018 the upside down “giogatori” stamped versions emerged. I’m not sure if they were printed back in 2011 already and only distributed now, or that they’ve printed them somewhere in 2017.
According to their website, upside down “giocatori” stamped versions were made as well, although I have yet to see any. I assume these were made for LPPCollecting Staff members, but I’m not entirely sure. On their website, they also have printing numbers for each of the four Italian stamped versions: 1191 “giogatori”; 243 “giocatori”; 57 upside down “giogatori”; and 6 upside down “giocatori”. I’m not sure how accurate these printing numbers are. The English stamped version also isn’t mentioned.
As for the “20th Anniversario” stamped version (which I now have, but I still have to update my post): they were given with orders of at least 50 euros on the lppcollecting.it webshop from December 2nd, 2021 onward, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of LPPCollecting, according to their Facebook post.
As for the 7 W stamped promos, I’m 99% sure they’re officially released by WotC. The W is also part of the WotC logo, and they were just like the Best of Game cards probably just a kind of promo card. I personally don’t see the W stamped as anything different than for example the Prerelease stamps.
Greetz,
Quuador
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Ahhh thank you, yes this answers my question. I’ve been wording it awfully but this is what I was trying to get at. Didn’t know about Arbok but that would explain that at least Arbok was a conscious decision and printed to stamp straight away.
What I was originally trying to ask is so hard for me to articulate for some reason haha.
Like how the LPP were stamped 10 years after printing. I was wondering if the cards involved in the W stamp series always knew they were going to be W stamped. So like:
- Were the watortles (and all other cards) printed and destined to be put into base set 2 booster packs and then when they launched the W campaign they dragged out that stock and took it for W stamping instead
Or
-did they print 50,000 (or whatever the print number was) to be specifically printed and then stamped for the promo.
What you said about Arbok certainly suggest the latter, thanks!
Yep these were what I was reading. Thanks for posting, I was a bit too lazy to go find again yesterday sorry. So just bullet pointed from memory, no excuse now with the new search function though haha.
These are such a fun little curiosity. Thank you as always for such extensive documentation. Your posts are probably the only reference to the cards that exist at all in English.
I’d maybe like to pick up one of the corrected English variants sometime. I’m sure they are very difficult to find.
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I’ve not seen an English one listed ever, been looking to get one but don’t think it’s the sort of thing that would pop up on eBay
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